What Happens When You Don't Have Support?

Support. What do you think of when you hear that word? Maybe you think about physical support, a beam lifting another beam, preventing a structure from falling. Maybe you think about emotional support, a friend providing a listening ear for whatever challenges and struggles you might be facing. Or maybe you think about technical support, the folks on the other end of the line that you call when you run into software issues.

Unfortunately, software support doesn’t have the most stellar reputation. Some software vendors don’t include support services in their packages—it’s an additional charge you’ll have to cough up if you want a better experience. Other vendors may offer support, but with seriously limited hours or outsource to a third-party company that may not have enough knowledge of the software to truly be of help. And still, others might offer only a PDF and a couple of “troubleshooting” web pages!

With so many potential pitfalls to navigate, it can be easy to convince yourself that you don’t really need support when it comes to construction estimating software. If it’s just going to cause more headaches and more invoices, then what’s the point? After all, at this point, you can find the answer to almost anything with a few Google searches.

So, sure, you might be able to survive without software support. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. What does it really look like to have NO support for your construction estimating software—no one to call, no one to email, nowhere to troubleshoot when you run into a problem you really can’t solve on your own? We’ve got the answer for you in one word…DYSTOPIA!

What A Support-less Dystopia Looks Like

man standing in cluttered and destroyed factory Dystopia=chaotic, frightening, and unpleasant!

Dystopia, briefly defined, is an “imagined state or society that is undesirable or frightening” —and that’s exactly what a lack of dedicated software support creates. When you don’t have a committed support team for your construction estimating software, it not only means that you won’t have anyone to send questions or report bugs to, but it also means that your construction estimating software is very likely to receive few, if any, updates; that the vendor’s reception of client feedback is probably extremely limited or nonexistent; and that the software itself will probably become incredibly outdated within a couple of years.

Without support, a bug that could take a support team a couple of hours to resolve might sideline your preconstruction efforts for days, and might never get fixed. If a bug is serious or repetitive enough, you may simply stop using the software altogether, wasting valuable time and resources. And when you go back to using tools like Excel, you’ll find your team disconnected, bogged down with change orders and tiny errors that constantly need fixing, and lacking in standardized processes that provide efficiency to your workflows.

If you have ideas for how the software could be improved or tweaked to your specific needs, toss ‘em out the window. No one’s going to be there to help you make those ideas a reality, and you won’t have the time to work out the fine details yourself. Integration with other preconstruction tools you might already be using? Also a pipe dream. A software support team is crucial to funneling feedback to developers, helping them prioritize upcoming stops on the software’s roadmap.

And last but certainly not least, you can wave goodbye to any hope for a seamless, successful implementation when you choose construction estimating software without support. Support plays an integral role in getting reports, views, and dashboards ready for your team so that you can hit the ground running the moment training is complete and the software has been fully onboarded. Without it, you’ll be left alone and adrift the moment implementation is complete.

How Do You Get to Utopia, Then?

golden clouds and sunlight Utopia is just a software vendor with an amazing support team away.

The opposite of dystopia is utopia, of course, and we hope it’s obvious that the only way you get there is with amazing software support. We don’t mean outsourced support or low-effort support, where you’re handed a manual and left to your own devices—we mean a dedicated team who’s ready to respond to your questions at any time and who is truly invested in helping you succeed, even if that means spending hours working on an issue with you. It’s a team that should provide avenues for you to submit feedback and ideas, a team that knows the ins and outs of the software you’re living in.

 

 

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